ONE DEPARTS
or returns
or remains.
If no one cares,
what’s the point
of driving
in traffic
or just sitting
here
in shape
trying to get
pissed off at
sweet
gentle Joseph
Haydn.
Monday, March 11, 2013
ONE DAY’S LAZY RAIN
ONE DAY’S LAZY
RAIN
can be counted on
every cool May
to smash spireas’
brief show
white wet-down
into the green
gleaming grass—
and we with
somehow sadness
know
we have to wait
another year
for such
a fecund rain.
OKAY
Okay,
they will clear
the roads soon
and the rigid
snow will be gone.
So, tell me
where should
I go
now that I’ve
borrowed
a car?
OH MY GOD!
OH MY GOD!
at least
it will be
some thing
to do. . .
to follow
the score
of the Beethoven
Sonata
when we are
left alone
tonight
again.
(Clicking on photos enlarges them.)
OH GOD!
OH GOD!
Let it not be
the aime
that gives me
such Wagnerian
flatulence
in this flowery
lovely
Gabriel Faure
room.
OBVIOUSLY
OBVIOUSLY
I can’t tell you
everything. . .
and that’s too
bad.
Isn’t it?
But
isn’t there
something
you’d like
to know?
NOW WE UNDERSTAND
Now we understand
that poppies hum
slumber, cities
chant slaughter,
holy men hawk
hatred for votes and gold,
bubble gum
replaces B___ as the virus
reinvents itself
and bides its time.
Fat men in
fatigues and jungle gear
wave flags with
bloodshot eyes,
and manure
manifestos measure our resolve.
What can be done
but to remember
somewhere a slow
bassoon plans moonlight,
somewhere a
sleeping drum dreams Brahms.
NOW THAT MY LAUGH
NOW THAT MY LAUGH
past seventy
is settling
more or less
deeper in me,
and the prospect
of a lemoned
martini
nullifies the
fact
that my glasses
slide a little
down my nose,
I don’t care
anymore
if I can’t
play Bach.
(Clicking on photos enlarges them.)
NOW I KNOW
NOW I KNOW
just how
the trombones
should sound. . .
like the cellos
when they’re
imitating
Rimbaud.
NOT THE DAISY
NOT THE DAISY,
white eared and
pure,
but that
daffodil,
ignoring
all the others,
staring at me
unabashed
in yellow,
may be all
the challenge
left.
NO PHANTOMS TO CHOOSE
No phantoms to
chose between tonight,
Nor other egos
Which yesterday’s
perspiring glass
Stained forever
silver, silenced, even though I move,
Grimace or
shriek, with or without the pious tablets
Pulsing me to
sleep, black, locomotive-like,
Parallel to one
night’s drawn blind death drowning,
Chest heavy,
sharp, high-clawed to dawn
Solemn waked with
sun, streaked, still soft
Amber anchored in
the noises of the street,
Part distant,
insistently today and not that last
Night’s
courageous loss of instinct
Which did not let
me die again.
NOT NARCISSUS NOW
NOT NARCISSUS
NOW,
physical in flesh
or firmly
phantasized
mental, as if the
model
who has other
dreams,
(no doubt, no
doubt)
sweats solely for
the artist
and not for the
light
that glistens
across his chest
as a new
religion’s
ancient
reflection,
discovered
again and again.
There must be no
doubt,
one has one’s
own reflection.
NOT
NOT
may
I pray,
But will.
Enough. . .
let’s
tempt
the gods
again.
NO, NO, THEY CAN’T
NO, NO, THEY
CAN’T
touch me now.
I say all the
words,
smile, and go
home,
taking their
funny
little money. . .
Jesus! I even wear
a tie.
And, since I draw
the shades
what can they know
of Bach or me
or dancing?
NO WITHERED DAY APART
No withered day
apart wastes its aimless
Rush on felling
leaves too soon; the lakes speed
No surface still
or soft unseasoned, freed,
Retouched by
sun’s rebuffs alone. No test
Survives the clock,
nor tested held above
The greed the
grains demand; no music made
Can go unheard,
untoned, untouched; no glade
Can winter-gaunt
remain when spring’s green glove
Slips soft above
the sudden smells of life,
And twists the
husks of hemp to smiles beneath
The frozen
leaves’ black edge, and sees the snow-teethed-
Grin, dull, decay
before the blue light’s knife.
Spring
again? What is all this waiting worth?
It comes when it
will come and knows no haste. . .
But just this
once, let’s face it first and taste
Its joy with all
the fools of earth.
NO ROSE, TOO YOUNG AWARE
No rose, too
young aware, slow bursts to rust
Blood bloom;
wanting wing, knowing, strives
Tight clutched,
down-suppressed against the sap
Vertical thrust
to a sun’s green peeled sigh.
Which doubt can
claim the when of Time’s rebuff
Grown before the
graft, and placed near where
And how in
strangled Time’s reversed dry sands,
Deciding who
shall name illicit care?
Covert moon drawn
breath unbreathed beyond
My thorn bound
hands repressed; white-bone-
Baked, dreamed
black, in dust perfumed before,
Falls blown
petaled at my feet on stone.
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